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Leonardo.Ai is Building the Future of Creativity, with a Workplace to Match

Leonardo.AI has been selected for the Culture 100 Award, earning them the title of 'Most Loved Company To Work For 2025' for their exceptional employee experience.

  • LinkedIn

Feature with  HYER

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Leonardo.Ai launched with a bold vision: to democratise creativity through generative AI. What started as an ambitious idea quickly became one of the most advanced AI-powered content generation platforms in the world. With over 15 million users generating more than a billion images, Leonardo has redefined how creators—from hobbyists to professionals—bring their ideas to life.

 

Their cutting-edge AI models, including their proprietary Phoenix model, offer an unprecedented level of control, precision, and quality. But beyond the technology, Leonardo has built something just as powerful: a culture that moves at speed without leaving people behind. In 2024, the company became part of the Canva family, further cementing its place as a leader in the generative AI space. But despite the acquisition, Leonardo continues to operate as an independent platform, building for its community and putting creativity at the heart of everything it does. That same spirit applies internally. Growing from startup to industry leader in less than two years, Leonardo knew that culture couldn’t be an afterthought—it had to be the foundation. And it’s this people-first approach that has earned them a Culture 100 Award, recognising them as one of Australia’s  most loved companies to work for.

 

Leonardo’s rapid growth has required intentionality in how the company builds its culture. Moving fast is necessary in an industry evolving in real-time, but speed alone isn’t enough. The team has worked hard to create an environment that balances ambition with sustainability, ensuring that no one gets lost in the pace of change. To make sure their values were more than just words on a careers page, Leonardo involved every employee in defining them—starting with a company-wide survey and ending with leadership workshops designed to bring those values to life. One of the most defining? “Be a Good Human.” For a company working in AI, this isn’t just a cultural principle—it’s a commitment to ensuring that technology enhances creativity rather than replaces it. More than that, it’s a reflection of the founders themselves and the kind of company they’re building. The team celebrated the launch of their values in a way only Leonardo could—using their own AI tools to generate motion graphics that captured the spirit of the company. It was a moment that reinforced what employees already knew: this is a place where people don’t just work on AI—they shape its future.

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For the people behind Leonardo, this isn’t just a job—it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to help redefine an entire industry. That excitement is reflected in how employees describe their work:

  • "Being part of something that is impacting people's lives right now. Not just a concept, not vapourware, not snake-oil. Real tools with real utility."

  • "Great to be part of a super fast-growing company and helping it grow. A lot of awesome and smart people around."

  • "It feels like we are winning together."

To keep that sense of momentum and connection, Leonardo has put a strong emphasis on supporting employees at every stage of their careers. With leadership training, career growth frameworks, and industry conference access, the company ensures that as it scales, its people do too.

One of the biggest challenges of a hyper-growth company is ensuring that leadership grows at the same pace as the business itself. To address this, Leonardo invested in leadership training for all line managers in 2024, equipping them with the skills needed to support teams effectively. The results speak for themselves:

  • “My manager’s approach fosters a team environment and high morale” scored 8.7 in their engagement survey.
     

  • “My manager is attentive, empathetic, and I feel comfortable approaching them on personal matters” scored 8.6.

The company’s **gathering weeks—where over 30% of the team flies into Sydney for a week of collaboration, connection, and learning—**also reinforce the culture in tangible ways. Instead of letting remote work create distance, Leonardo intentionally engineers opportunities to bring people together. For a company built on creativity, diversity isn’t just a priority—it’s a competitive advantage. Over 50% of Leonardo’s new hires in 2024 identified as female, and the company continues to actively shape an industry-leading approach to inclusion. 

Their International Women’s Day panel, featuring female leaders across the company, sparked real conversations about the challenges and opportunities for women in tech. One employee summed it up best: "I'm so tired of hearing surface-level discussions on these subjects, but this was different. It was very clear and direct. I loved hearing what problems should be addressed alongside some great ideas to solve them."

 

Why Culture 100?

Winning a Culture 100 Award isn’t just about having a great employer brand—it’s about being the kind of company that employees genuinely believe in. C100 Goes beyond perks and surface-level benefits, focusing on what truly makes a workplace exceptional—the people behind it. The selection process involved analysing thousands of companies and gathering insights from over 20,000 employees to identify the businesses that are redefining what a great workplace looks like. Companies where "people-first" isn’t just a slogan—it’s something employees genuinely feel and experience every day.

To ensure authenticity, the methodology centred around employee sentiment surveys, capturing real insights from the people who experience the culture firsthand. Employees were asked: What’s one moment that showed you your company truly cares about its people? What’s the secret to your connection with the culture? What initiatives make you feel valued? These open-ended responses, combined with Employee Net Promoter Scores (eNPS) and satisfaction metrics on career growth opportunities, helped paint a detailed picture of which companies are truly prioritising their people.

 

in the end, technology alone doesn’t shape the future. People do. And Leonardo is making sure that both creativity—and the creatives behind it—continue to thrive.

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